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Where Death Comes in Winter, and Burial in the Spring

GREENFIELD CENTER, N.Y. - Spencer Mangino, a 4-year-old, was buried on April 23 in a cemetery in this rural upstate community, nearly a month after he died.

The delay was "like the absolute worst day of your life is prolonged," said his mother, Marcy Mangino.

It is not unusual for families here to wait weeks, even months, to bury loved ones who die during the region's long winters, which freeze the earth solid. But now, with the ground yielding to daffodils and tulips, burials have begun again at the small, mostly rural cemeteries across the northern half of New York State that close in wintertime and do not reopen until the spring thaw.

"Our whole house -- everybody is a disaster," Mrs. Mangino said a few days after her son was buried in Greenfield Cemetery, in Saratoga County, where graves date to the mid-1800's. "It brought it all back fresh. It was horrible."

The ritual of spring burials in parts of upstate New York and other northern areas began long before the first grave was dug in Greenfield Cemetery. The bodies of people who die in the winter are stored in cemetery vaults and at funeral homes until it is warm enough to dig into the earth.

Randy McCullough, a spokesman for the New York State Funeral Directors Association, estimated that 1,000 burials were delayed this winter. That means that family members and friends who attended funerals during the colder months are now gathering to grieve once again.

The long delays would all but end under a plan state lawmakers are considering that would require year-round burials. There would be provisions for exceptionally bad weather, but cemeteries that fail to comply would face fines of $250.

"You can't just close down because your cemetery caretaker goes to Florida for six months," said Assemblywoman RoAnn M. Destito, a Democrat from Rome, a sponsor of the bill. "I think we need to move this system into the 21st century."

The proposal has divided funeral directors, who must deal with a backlog of burials in the spring, and cemetery caretakers, who say it would be too expensive for many small cemeteries to buy the more powerful equipment needed to cut through the frozen earth.

If the legislation becomes law, New York would become the third state, after Minnesota and Wisconsin, to require winter burials, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The funeral directors, who are pushing the legislation, say the practice is outdated, extends the grieving process for the family and is costly for families to have to return for spring burials.

Joseph Dispenza, the president of the New York State Association of Cemeteries, said he questioned the motives of the funeral directors. "This is yet another opportunity through legislation to mandate a fee on the family to line the pockets of the for-profit mortuaries," Mr. Dispenza said.

Families would have to pay for the extra costs needed to dig through the frozen ground, he said. But Mr. McCullough said costs may actually decrease because funeral directors' services would not be required for another day to oversee the spring burial.

Mr. Dispenza said, however, that the costs of new equipment and remaining open during the winter could be too steep for some smaller cemeteries and might force them to close permanently.

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"How does a cemetery control nature?" asked Mr. Dispenza. "How does a cemetery change the hand of God -- the nature of the hand of God?"

Mr. Dispenza said upstate communities had long accepted the practice of cemeteries closing for the winter, and that he did not realize that some people had objections until the legislation was announced at a news conference held by funeral directors' association. Dr. Rudy Nydegger, a clinical psychologist in Schenectady who has worked with hospice patients and their families, has assessed the grief associated with spring burials in his work.

"The acuteness of those feelings probably won't last as long or be quite as disruptive as it might have been at the time of the death," Dr. Nydegger said. "Not that it's easier. There's been some partial grieving going on in the interim."

Mark Phillips, a Saratoga funeral director who is member of the board of the funeral directors' association, handled Spencer Mangino's funeral, held on April 4. The child died of mitochondrial disease, a genetic degenerative illness, on March 30.

Mr. Phillips said he kept the boy's body at the funeral home until his burial because his mother strongly objected to its being placed in the vault at another cemetery, where he had stored 20 bodies for the winter.

"I hate to say it's an inconvenience, but it's an infringement on their mourning process," Mr. Phillips said, referring to the practice of closing cemeteries. A representative of Greenfield Cemetery, where the boy was buried, did not return a phone call seeking comment.

Webster Union Cemetery, 10 miles east of Rochester, usually closes for February and March. "We try to do them as much as we can until the weather gets bad," said Tom Anderson, the cemetery superintendent.

For the most part, Mr. Anderson said, people understand that winter burials may not be possible. They are warned when they purchase their plots, he said.

If the proposal to mandate winter burials becomes law, Mr. Anderson said, the cemetery, a nonprofit organization, will adapt. A stronger backhoe will be needed and additional workers will be hired. But for now, the weather determines the cemetery's season.

At Graceland Cemetery in Albany, where year-round burials are conducted, a century-old granite receiving vault houses bodies that will be taken to smaller cemeteries. There are 60 marble slots in the vault; eight of those held coffins with bodies awaiting burial on Friday. Several of them had been there since January. Graceland's caretaker, Bob Curtis Jr., said he used a "frost dome," a tin structure that is heated by propane, to soften the earth in the winter.

Mr. Curtis, who also takes care of two other cemeteries, including one that does not do winter burials, said he thought the legislation would help grieving families.

"They get over it easier doing it once," he said.

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A version of this article appears in print on May 1, 2005, on Page 1001041 of the National edition with the headline: Where Death Comes in Winter, and Burial in Spring. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe